Journal of James Edmond Pease, a Civil War Union Soldier by Jim Murphy

Author:Jim Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2012-07-25T04:00:00+00:00

In the evening

They came on at dusk — something Lt. Toms suggested they might do. So I guess they care. The shadows was beginning to lengthen when first one Reb soldier, then two, three, four, and more scurried from the far woods, bent low and searching for what little cover there was. These advance pickets had been sent out to see what we would do.

Naturally, our men opened fire on the shadowy targets and may have picked off one or two. It was hard to tell. Ten more entered the clearing in the meantime, moved forward 100 feet, dodging and ducking, and went to ground when they found shelter. Pretty soon this small group had miniés whistling thru the spring leaves at us and it was our turn to duck.

“Find your targets before you shoot,” I heard Sgt. Donoghue order, as he moved among his group. “Make your shots count. Don’t waste a single shot.” Which was good advice, so I went along my little line and told the same to my ten men. We had been issued sixty rounds yesterday, but getting resupplied in this tangle of trees will be hard. Our sixty shots might have to last all night and tomorrow.

Sgt. Donoghue appeared at my side. “Listen for our pickets out there,” he instructed me, tho he really didn’t need to. I had no intention of being caught “napping” and then have to answer later to him, Lt. Toms and Maj. Pettit! He had just finished speaking when — whiz! bang!! — a shell burst over our heads and — fiz! whiz!! rattle!!! — the fragments came tearing thru the treetops above us, which made us duck even lower and grab hold of our forage caps. When the metal stopped falling, the Sgt. looked up at the leaves above, which had been clearly punctured in many places by the metal, smiled and said, “I guess it wasn’t our time. Good luck, Pease,” then hurried off.

We went back to our work then, which became real when the advance pickets from K Company began to be heard. My breathing got faster and I had an odd sense that things was beginning to happen too quickly around me to see.

There are two kinds of charges that I know of. In one, everybody jumps up right away and runs at you, that is, after the cannons have softened up the other side. This is the sort of charge that the Reb Gen. Pickett made at Gettysburg. The second begins slowly, with little groups of men moving forward, poking and probing in various places to find the softest spot to charge. So in a little while, if they think ours is the easiest to get thru, the charge will come — and it was this that had me edgy.

“Steady! Steady!” I yelled at my group, but I was really yelling at myself not to think too much. If you don’t do much thinking, but watch instead and then let your feet and body react, you can keep the creeping shakes under control.

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